Shades of Allegiance

by Sandy Williams

  Ash rubbed at her temples, then lowered her hands.

  “I’ll get you there,” she said with all the confidence of an anomaly who believed she was near invincible.

  He rephrased. “What are the obstacles, Ashdyn?”

  She pressed her lips together, then erased the emotion from her face. When she spoke, it was with the conciseness of a soldier reporting her recon.

  “Scius has tight control over the precinct. He’ll have dregs waiting at the causeway’s exit. They’ll have superior position and numbers, but the other bosses won’t be happy about the attack. Jumpers who survive the causeway are off-limits to retribution for twenty days—it’s one of the reasons dregs risk it—so Scius won’t send a huge force. We’ll be able to neutralize what he does send, and then we will have to stay dark until we reach the spaceport.”

  “He knows you’re here now,” Chace said. “He won’t let you get to the spaceport. The only way we survive is to go to Bedlam.” He paused. “We can gain leverage on the way.”

  “No.” Ash’s voice turned cold, and a warning sparked in her eyes.

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  “What’s the leverage?” Rykus asked.

  “The causeway,” Chace said, not taking his eyes off Ash. “She can hijack it.”

  Ash shook her head. “That was five years ago.”

  “Scius never found out about the vulnerability.”

  “Probably because there’s not one.”

  “We can get in. You can do your magic.”

  “There was never a guarantee that magic would work.”

  “It will work, Ash.”

  “No,” she ground out again.

  Rykus watched her. He’d seen that furious set to her jaw before, the tension that ran through her entire body. At the beginning of all this, when Admiral Bayis had recaptured Ash and demanded she decrypt the files her team had stolen from the Sariceans, she’d illogically and stubbornly refused. She was illogically and stubbornly refusing now.

  “We’ll go to Bedlam,” Rykus said.

  Ash’s head jerked his way. “You’ll miss the capsule.”

  “I wasn’t planning to be on it without you.”

  Her eyes narrowed just noticeably, a warning to watch his words. Chace and Mira were listening, both with slight creases on their brows.

  “I’ve made the decision,” Ash said.

  “And I’ve overridden it.”

  Her jaw clenched, and her eyes flashed with a collision of sharp words and cutting jabs she couldn’t say without betraying too much. Rykus respected Ash’s wishes—he’d do his best to pretend they were only colleagues—but if she thought he’d sit back and let her have complete control over every decision, she was wrong.

  “I have enemies in Bedlam,” she said.

  Chace sat back against the wall. “You have friends too. More than you think.”

  “If you believe that, you’re drinking fumes.” She crossed her arms, shifted into a more comfortable position against the alcove wall, then closed her eyes, ending the conversation.

  The tram jerked Ash from sleep, sucking her breath from her lungs and sending an excruciating slice of pain through her side.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to accept the hurt and to let it go. She couldn’t do anything about it now, just like she couldn’t do anything about their piss-poor situation.

  “How is your side?” Rykus’s voice was low and steady in the dim alcove.

  She opened her eyes. “Feels great.”

  His frown was too concerned. It was too attentive. Chace wasn’t an idiot. If Rip kept looking at her like that, he’d grow suspicious of a connection. If he grew suspicious of a connection, he’d use it to get what he wanted, which was for Ash to finish their last scheme and shake up Glory’s power structure. Chace had always been ambitious.

  She tilted her head to look to where he and Mira were sleeping against the back of the alcove.

  Maybe sleeping. Every time the tram passed, it startled them all awake. The escape from the spaceport had drained their energy. Ash and Rip could push through, but Chace and Mira needed to rest. Not for much longer though. They didn’t have fresh water. The longer they waited, the worse their dehydration would get.

  She pillowed her arm under her head and looked back at Rip. He was still watching her.

  She wanted to reach across the alcove and touch him. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, so many things that she’d never said to anyone else. She was relieved he was there while at the same time, she was angry and worried. Why wasn’t he still in the Javery System?

  She couldn’t ask him that question directly. If Chace or Mira was awake, they would figure out who he was. Everyone knew the hero of Gaeles Minor hailed from Javery.

  Instead, she asked, “How is your family?”

  A few seconds passed before he answered. “Okay.”

  “Things didn’t look okay.”

  His mouth tightened. “Help was there. My father will accept it if it’s needed.”

  He meant the Coalition. The minister prime had been trying for weeks to get Javery’s permission to engage the Sariceans, but the Javerians were notoriously independent. That’s why they’d never joined the Coalition. They stood on their own industry and security forces and refused offers of aid. It had taken a significant amount of arm twisting just to get the planet to agree to unofficial liaisons between the two governments, and Ash was fairly certain they wouldn’t have accepted that if Rip hadn’t been one of those contacts.

  “Is your sister there?” Ash asked. She kept her tone as disinterested as she could, but Rip’s brow furrowed just perceptibly. “She’s the only one in your family I like.”

  His brow smoothed out, and he almost smiled.

  “She said she was leaving soon.”

  That wasn’t as good as being gone. Rykus’s sister, Taya, had saved Ash’s ass after Javerian authorities detained her. Then Taya had attempted to use Rykus’s status as Ash’s fail-safe to coerce her into stealing life-saving medications for, ironically, the Sariceans. They needed a drug to survive away from the supposedly blessed healing waters of their home world, and every year, several hundred Sariceans escaped their oppressive societies and started new lives on Coalition planets. Taya and a few of her friends had a scheme going to get them the medicine they needed.

  Taya had asked Ash not to tell her brother about her side gig. Ash hadn’t made any promises. She also hadn’t told him yet.

  Rykus’s brow furrowed again.

  “We should move after the next tram,” she said before he started asking questions.

  “Is the clot cloth doing its job?”

  “Yeah.” It was still stuck to her side at least.

  She pushed up into a sitting position and managed not to grimace. She wasn’t fooling her fail-safe though. He knew her too well.

  At least he thought he did.

  Ash chewed on the inside of her cheek. She had to get him off-planet, send him back to Javery. He belonged there, not in this sick, dark corner of the KU.

  8

  The bone-rattling roar slammed into them for the fifteenth time. Ash’s knees buckled. She tried to stop her fall, her little show of weakness, with a hand on the alcove’s wall, but she skidded down anyway and hit her elbow on the ground.

  Ice-sharp pain flared along her right side. Nausea rolled through her gut. She focused on breathing. Focused on regulating her air, her pulse, her need to beat the ever-living hell out of somebody.

  Jumping the causeway hadn’t been part of her plan, not even the backup to her backup plan. With the vids pumping the causeway’s footage into gaming holes across Bedlam and Brightwater, her name and image would spread like tilt fever.

  “You’re not sweating,” Rykus said.

  He, also, was not part of the plan. He sat against the wall opposite her, looking all calm and stoic. He’d already slowed his breathing, his heart rate was probably back to baseline, and he was sweating
exactly the right amount. It glistened on his chest and made his abs look even more defined.

  She should find excuses to take off his clothes more often. He had a body that deserved to be seen.

  “I’m aware of that,” she said. Her mouth was parched, her skin cool and clammy, and her head hurt like she’d sent it full throttle into a security barrier. Even if she hadn’t leaked enough blood to fill an O2 tank, she’d be dehydrated. To hell with her little hurts and pains though. If the whole fucking planet hadn’t been watching, she would have crawled across the alcove, straddled his lap, and wrapped herself in his arms. It had been too long since they’d touched.

  “How long will it take the program to invade the operating system?” Rykus asked. He’d tilted his head one degree to the side, an almost invisible sign that suggested he knew where her thoughts had gone. He was too professional though, too in control, to act on that knowledge. That, and she’d asked him not to.

  Definitely for the best. He was a weakness that every dreg on Glory would try to exploit.

  She looked at her com-cuff. Only the countdown to their next sprint—their last sprint—showed on its screen, but buried in its data cells was the virus she’d developed five years ago. That was back before Caruth, before her hack-sig courses, before Rykus. She’d kept it encrypted in her data profile all this time, and in between pillar sprints when she wasn’t mapping out their scheme with Rykus and Chace, she had been tweaking the virus with her new knowledge. If everything went as planned, it would insert a code into the causeway’s databanks that transferred control of the tram to her. That wouldn’t just injure Scius’s pride; it would put a dent in his finances that would show the rest of Glory that he could be outwitted.

  “I have it down to twenty minutes,” she said, “but that’s dependent on what stats and commands the technicians enter.”

  “Chace and I should do this without you,” Rykus said. The words were a statement, said with resignation and without even a hint of an order. He knew it was futile to tell her to stay behind.

  “You’ll miss the access panel,” she said.

  “How sure are you about the security?” He directed that question to Chace, who was sitting next to Mira against the back wall. Both men were playing nice for now, pushing aside their differences, which seemed to center around who had the right to give her advice and support.

  “I confirmed the number and routes three days ago,” Chace said. “It’s solid.”

  “Three days ago.” Ash sniffed. “It’s almost like you planned all this.”

  “I planned for an ambush at the spaceport and a crash into the causeway? Didn’t know you thought so highly of my skills.”

  He kept his voice and gaze level, not betraying a damn thing. He was scheming though. Ash felt it in every molecule in the air.

  “How many civilians are inside?” Rykus asked.

  Chace’s forehead creased. “Civilians?”

  That was another reason Rykus shouldn’t be there. On Glory, you were either a dreg or part of the corrupt-as-hell oligarchy. Seekers and off-worlders were targets, people who were allowed to live as long as it was profitable, but the concept of civilian didn’t exist here. No one was innocent. Everyone was as disposable as a plastic plate due for refabrication.

  “The technicians won’t be armed,” Ash said. “They’ll fight though. We won’t get through this without killing people.”

  The moral dilemma tightened his expression. Ash felt it too, but she could wrap herself in her past, become that cold, uncaring dreg who killed acquaintances and let collateral damage die. She hated that person, knew Rykus would hate her too if he met her.

  “Chace and I will take care of the opposition,” she said. “You take care of Mira.”

  “I don’t need to be taken care of,” Mira said, opening her eyes. The aid worker had held up better than Ash expected, but with every sprint, she fell farther behind.

  “I don’t know if the panel will get us in,” Ash said. “You three will keep running until you hear me call. If I don’t call, you don’t stop.”

  The panel should get them in. They were currently resting in the last pillar before the causeway connected to the east continent. When it reached the black cliffs, the tunnel would cut through the operations station, a building that monitored the tram, the causeway, and every passenger who entered and exited the boarding terminal. They needed to get inside the station, make their way to the control room, and upload her code into its servers. Then they somehow had to avoid security and the dregs Scius would send until the virus did its thing.

  She kept her eyes on Mira, but she felt Rykus watching her, felt his I’m-not-leaving-you glare. If this scheme didn’t work, she’d be responsible for his death.

  That thought made her heart race and her chest tighten with a pain that hurt more than her injuries.

  “If this doesn’t play out like it’s supposed to,” Ash said, “surrender and make a deal. Not with Scius. Look for someone else, someone who has the resources and ambition to take him out.”

  A quartet of beeps cut through the air: their comm-cuffs beeping a two-minute warning.

  Ash fought down a wave of uneasiness. “Do you need to rest another tram or are you ready?”

  “I’m ready.” Mira said the words like she was certain Ash would pull this off. Faith was a dangerous thing. It made otherwise intelligent people do stupid shit.

  Using the wall for support, Ash pushed to her feet. The movement took more effort than she’d ever admit, and her head spun like she’d broken tether on a hull-walk.

  A hand locked on her arm.

  She realized she’d been staring at nothing, squeezed her eyes shut, then focused on her fail-safe. He was close enough for the heat of his body to warm the air. But she wouldn’t let herself lean into him, wouldn’t let herself note the concern leaking into his eyes.

  “The objective is the operations station,” Ash said. “We’ll reassess our strategy afterward.”

  “We should rest longer.” He didn’t let go of her arm. His thumb moved over the crook of her elbow.

  “We need water.” Reluctantly she pulled free. “We’ll get that in the station.”

  “Then take the booster.” He kept his voice low. Most likely, Chace and Mira couldn’t hear him. Still made her uncomfortable though. So did the tug on her free will.

  “Get ready,” she said loud enough for the others to hear. She moved into position half a meter from the alcove’s edge. “Thirty seconds.”

  Mira and Chace leaned against the opposite wall, and Rykus stayed close behind her.

  They waited. She braced for the brain-wrenching pressure.

  The scream pierced her eardrums, and she pushed forward, entering the killing causeway at an all-out sprint. She pumped her arms, forced her legs to devour the meters despite the painful tremor in her quads. She was fast, even in her battered state, but the others—Chace and Rykus at least—should be pulling ahead.

  They weren’t going to follow her fucking instructions. They were staying at her side.

  She kept going, kept pushing. Her lungs burned, and her pulse beat out of control. She put everything into the sprint. This was the last one. Succeed or fail. Live or die.

  She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let her fail-safe splatter out.

  Twelve grueling minutes later, Ash skidded to a stop. This should be it. Or close to it. The slate-gray walls looked smooth and identical the entire length of the causeway, but the eastern operations station should be on the left side of the tunnel. It had been five years since she last passed through there, since she’d last seen a panel that appeared to be a shade lighter around the edges.

  “Where is it?” Chace bent over, hands on knees, breaths heaving while his gaze scanned the blank wall.

  Ash pressed her hands against the surface, walked farther down the tunnel. Stopped, then walked back.

  Where the hell was it?

  She glanced at her cuff: three minutes to go.

  S
he couldn’t be wrong. It had to be there.

  She imagined sweat slithering down her back, imagined it dampening her shirt and running down her face. A cold, almost debilitating panic squeezed her lungs.

  “Check them all.” She took out her knife and shoved it at seams.

  Chace and Mira did the same, hands searching and blades skating across the wall.

  Their cuffs beeped in sync: the two-minute countdown.

  Fuck!

  “Ash!” Chace yelled.

  “I know. I know!” She wanted to tell them to run, that she’d made a mistake, but they’d lost too much time. It was futile. They were dead.

  Dead.

  She backed away from the wall.

  “Breathe, baby,” Rykus said. He moved behind her, put his hands on her waist, and whispered into her ear. “Look where you are. You’re halfway between vids, maybe slightly closer to the next. You can make out a faint glow at the end of the causeway. You’ve memorized schematics from a hundred different classes of warships and battle cruisers. You remember the details of every mission you’ve planned. You remember this too. Just look around. Is this where we need to be?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Opened them. She looked at the vid farther down. She’d compensated for her condition, for her all-out run being slower than usual. She hadn’t compensated enough.

  She stepped away from her fail-safe and strode past Chace and Mira, who still frantically tried to find the panel. She visualized the station on the other side of the wall, the corridors and closets and control room. Instinct guided her to a section of the smooth surface. She ran her hand over the artificially cooled metal and felt an invisible indentation.

  “Here,” she said. She stabbed her knife into the seam. The tip penetrated and she shoved harder, putting her weight into it.

  “I’ve got it.” Rykus moved her aside, stabbed his knife in just under hers. His slid in halfway up the blade, and he changed his angle, pushing the hilt sideways to try to lever the panel free.

  It didn’t pop out; it slowly bent toward them.